


Floriography

by PhantomsDaughter13



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: 100 Drabble Challenge, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/F, F/M, Gen, Gender-Neutral Chara, Gender-Neutral Frisk, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Overabundance of flowers and plants and nature-y things, POV Multiple, Poison, Puppy Love, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-17 17:19:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5879209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomsDaughter13/pseuds/PhantomsDaughter13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One hundred 100-word drabbles of character and plot exploration, canonical and not, each based off the meaning of a different type of flower, plant, or herb. Tags will be updated along with the chapters. </p><p>"Where flowers bloom, so does hope." -Lady Bird Johnson</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act I, Scenes 1-12

**Author's Note:**

> This is something that has been plucking at my heartstrings until it pulled all my words out of me. I want to put out just Act I as a way of gauging what you guys think- I don't have a beta, so any and all feedback will help me edit and reshape what I have. This has been a major labor of love, and I truly want to share the journey. 
> 
> Please leave a comment, kudos, or send me a message! Thank you for taking the time to read!

[Asphodel- My Regrets Follow You to the Grave]

Long had Chara’s hand been still between both of his. 

Asriel’s eyes watched the stuttered movement of their chest as it struggled to move, ignoring the wet tracks of tears weaving through the fur on his cheeks. 

The burns and blisters on Chara’s lips still bled in tiny, weeping droplets as breath wheezed intermittently between them. Tiny pinpricks of light glistened off their half-closed eyes, holding Asriel captive with their fire. 

It wouldn’t be long. They could both feel it as a physical weight in their souls, pulling them together. 

Asriel swallowed down fear. They were going to be heroes.

~*~

[Asparagus Fern – Fascination]

Frisk stared up in shock, body heavy and still from the breath stolen from them. 

The blazing light shining through the opening they fell from gleamed even from behind their eyelids as they blinked. Small fingers twitched at their sides, twining in tender stems and soft blades of grass. 

The violent rush of blood in their ears rumbled and roared in intensity as the aching need for air screamed in their bones. 

The hole they descended through looked whole worlds away, another life. How had they survived their sudden exodus? 

They turned their head and took their first shaking breath. 

~*~

[Azalea - Take Care, Fragile, Passion]

The softness of Toriel’s fur was belied by the strength that coiled in her embrace, in the solidity of her body and her arms around them. 

Frisk closed their eyes and burrowed as close as possible, doing what they could to be fully enveloped by her until they were one. 

Is this what love felt like? A softly kindled heat that acted as a balm on wounded hearts and scraped knees? A blazing inferno that purified through painful resurrection and rebirth of the core? 

Frisk’s throat burned hot with it, tight with longing and the still sparking ashes of their resurrection. 

~*~

[Baby’s Breath - Innocence, Pure of Heart]

The cold of snow tasted fresh on their tongue and sharp in their lungs. It rushed over, curious as it curled fingers playfully in their hair. Frisk shivered hard beneath the threadbare fabric of their striped sweater, eyes sharp as they looked upon the glistening ice framing the path before them. 

Looking up, their mouth opened in awe at the sheer height of the trees above them. Long, dark torsos that held firm to branches weighted with white. There were no footsteps in the snow before them. 

With the door closed tightly at their back, they made their first mark. 

~*~

[Begonia - Beware, A Fanciful Nature]

The sound of the branch breaking brought Frisk up short and raised their shoulders up to their ears in fright. 

In the World Before, noises such as that were forewarnings of dark things to come. Their lingering bruises throbbed and ached in time with their pulse. 

The monsters of the Ruins had been kind and aloof, but what beings lay ahead of this darkness? Well, they had come this far already, hadn’t they? 

Unsteadily, they took a step forward, and another, and another until they stopped at the bridge. 

The crunching of snow behind had echoed softly in their ears.

~*~

[Black Bryont (Lady’s Seal) - Be My Support]

Every day was a trial. Was it worth dragging his tired body out of bed? To say the same script of words, mimic the same actions, not knowing if it would end in happiness being stolen away or dying for everything to RESET? 

It was still dark outside, but he could already hear Papyrus moving about downstairs. 

After thinking for a moment, he dragged his jacket over aching bones and went to meet his joyfully bemused brother in the kitchen.

"SANS! YOU ARE NOT USUALLY AWAKE SO EARLY!"

Sans just smiled and shrugged. 

 

"felt like having breakfast with you, bro."

~*~

[Cactus – Endurance]

Sans had been here many times before. More times than he wanted to think back on, to be honest. He knew around what time the human would leave the Ruins, when they would cross before his station, and it was always the anticipation that burned through his apathy. 

Would they be covered in dust and smiling? Would they be carrying that toy knife? Would they have tears rolling down their face as they stumbled blindly through the cold? 

As the oncoming steps rattled louder and louder in his skull with their approach, he looked out. 

huh. 

this would be different. 

~*~

[Pink Camellia – Longing]

It was hard for him to look at the kid. 

There was something different in them, something that he hadn’t seen. Something in this human was as strong as the killer and yet as kind as the child who would bring them the sun. 

They looked upon him and his brother with a careful sort of wonder as they gamely did what Papyrus asked, shivering in the wind with their spine straight.

Sans had lost much of his HOPE. He could barely survive on what he had left. 

He wanted to want for more, but wanting was a risky business.

~*~

[Cardinal Flower (Scarlet Lobelia) – Distinction]

Frisk hunkered down beside the shop with the Cinnamon Bunny hot between their reddened fingers, breathing its scent in deep as they looked around at the lights of the town. For how cold it was outside, the decorations and the lights made something bubble warm inside of them. 

In the World Before, the cold of the town was always just cold. It was dangerous to walk alone, but what other way could they have walked? The night was cold and the rain was freezing and the wind was voraciously biting, but now? 

In this snow, they were ablaze with DETERMINATION. 

~*~

[Pink Carnation - I'll Never Forget You]

Sans walked at his brother’s side, listening quietly to his proclamations as they trudged through the snow back to their house. 

Every RESET, Papyrus’ sadness at not being accepted into the Royal Guard had to be readdressed. Yet in these moments on the Good Runs, when Papyrus was filled with triumph and joy after a day of solving puzzles…Sans would hesitantly admit to relishing in them. 

As they walked, he drank in his brother’s voice as deeply as he could. 

One of the hardest parts of losing him was the silence that would spring up with every one of Papyrus’ falls.

~*~

[Deep Red Carnation - Alas! For My Poor Heart]

Flowey didn’t enjoy traveling through Snowdin. The frozen earth was difficult to crack and maneuver through. 

He followed as closely behind the human as they could, frustrated at the hindrance of ice and frost on his petals, shaking them roughly free as he ducked back into the ground. 

The familiarity was the most maddening thing. Their hair, the darkness of their eyes, the strength that hid itself inside behind their fragile façade. 

They weren’t Chara. Chara was long gone. Yet it was like they were lying with their body, with their face, and they weren’t 

even  
playing  
the game  
correctly. 

~*~

[Red Catchfly - Youthful Love, I Fall Victim]

The dye of flower petals can come off when rubbed between fingertips. 

Asriel would watch as Chara’s fingers were colored gold as they rested between bouts of chase through the garden. 

Chara would sometimes reach out and stain the fur around Asriel’s face gold like his father’s, hands a lingering frame as they giggled. 

They would ignore it when the tips of their fingers turned red and ached, dipping them in water and hiding them behind too long sleeves when Asriel touched them gently in worry.

They were lost in childish daydreams where pain was brushed aside like dead leaves.


	2. Act II, Scenes 13-28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There are philosophies as varied as the flowers of the field, and some of them weeds and a few of them poisonous weeds."

[Chamomile (Golden Marguerite) {Anthemis} - Energy in Action]

He was so very tall, composed of color and stark white in turn. Papyrus was filled with a vitality so irrevocably bright that it was almost like looking into the sun. Frisk stood before him, breathing tightly through fear as their soul was pulled harshly down. 

They could no longer feel how frozen their skin was, the ice twined in their hair numb as it brushed against their cheek. The heat of their breath ghosted out of their mouth. But it didn’t matter in the intensity of Papyrus’ gaze, his grin, his elation. 

They let his thrill fill them up.

~*~

[Chickweed - I Cling to Thee]

Most of Sans’ nightmares had to do with Papyrus leaving to capture the human. 

It was always the moments before his feet left their home, wholly alive and garish with ambition, so very young and trusting. 

Sans wanted to cling to Papyrus’ soul, to darken it and hold him down and secure. Even in dreams he never could suffocate Papyrus that way; he might as well cut him down with his Gaster Blasters himself and be done with it. 

Would it hurt more to kill his brother before the human destroys him? 

He tries to smother the voice saying no.

~*~

[Christmas Rose (Helleborus*) - Relieve My Anxiety]

He always replaces the letter written to “Santa” in the same spot. 

He never could bring himself to leave Pap’s dust on the snow long enough to see if anything would grow from it. If there were anything in this winter wasteland that would be able to grow, it would come from his brother. 

Stranger things have happened. 

But he was too much of a coward, even knowing that this death would never last, to leave him out in the cold. 

So he carries him home, reads the letters he knows stroke by stroke, and leaves to summon the demon. 

 

~*~

[White Chrysanthemum – Truth]

Out of the way, hidden in the forgiving cover of the fog, Sans watched. 

Papyrus’ blue attack had entrapped the human’s soul, the sharp lines of his bones rhythmic and terminal in turn as they fought to dodge. 

No returned attacks, no movement to do more than live it through and protect themselves. Their thin chest hitched as they panted with exertion, digging their feet down to prevent their knees from buckling. 

The sunshine child from before was always the epitome of youthful health, the murderer solid and stoic and strong. This one? 

He couldn’t put his finger on it. 

~*~

[Cinquefoil - Beloved Child]

The silvers and greys of New Home were cold and oppressive. Longer and longer the King spent sleepless nights in his garden, powerful hands capable of ham-fisted violence were tender and delicate against newborn buds and trembling leaves.

Eyes glared from the petals, voices sounded and cried as the wind played against the stalks. Anger pulled hard from their thorns. 

He makes himself go into the basement and touch each sarcophagus gently, thanking and apologizing to each child. The empty one he bows his head over, silently still.

Asgore doesn’t even have the bodies of his own children to visit. 

~*~

[Clematis - Artifice, Ingenuity]

They were a parasite. By definition, a parasite is a being the feeds off others and gives nothing back in return, draining light and nutrients and everything that produces life. 

They lay in the background, drinking in experiences and sights and sounds while safely entwined in the shadows, feeling overexposed emotions echoed back to them. 

This was just so interesting.

New things were so hard to come by. They looked through to the eyes of the Comedian and knew that he felt the same way. 

Wouldn’t it be better to just end all of it?

Not yet. 

How very sad.

~*~

[Colchicum (Meadow Saffron) - My Best Days Fled]

What sits on the bottom of the Ruins and shakes? 

A nervous wreck.

Ba-dum-tsss 

Well, it was pretty dark and wet down here. And he was shivering. 

Sans understands how Alphys gets lost looking down where the water continuously flows, to the point that he himself would tremble with dark, treacherous thoughts despite not being able to feel the cold. 

What’s the advantage to finally giving up? 

He never had to make his bed, since he was practically always in it. 

 

Well, he thought it was funny the first few times around, but his judgment was on pretty thin ice.

~*~

[Red Columbine – Anxious]

Frisk didn’t want to die. 

They wanted to kill even less, so they guessed that if they had to die it would be okay. 

They knew Papyrus wouldn’t kill them. As long as they did their best and kept it up just a little bit longer, they could move forward. Even in those in-between moments, when they saw things real and notsorealmemorydream?, Papyrus never killed them. 

Frisk somehow could feel the crack of bone under their threadbare sneakers and shuddered down to their marrow. They could feel ribs beneath their palms as they were held in an embrace. 

They breathe.

~*~

[Convolvus Minor (Bindweed) – Uncertainty]

They had never noticed how dark it was. 

Papyrus had left them in the fog in the wake of their mercy, a joyous beam of light that left them in an even colder snow with frozen air clogging their throat. 

The hem of their pants were stuck to their ankles and pulled at their skin with each of their steps as they vacillated.

How did those trees grow? There was no sun or moon. 

They stood in quiet thought for a moment, eyes locked on the darkness above.

They walked back to Snowdin struggling to step in Papyrus’ deep footprints. 

~*~

[Cornflower - Delicacy, Refinement]

She missed her snails. 

It seemed so very silly that her grief narrowed down to such a triviality, but she did and she ached for it with an intensity she didn’t allow herself to look into. 

The snails of Waterfall were very different than those she was able to scrounge up and find in the Ruins, and she couldn’t help but look at their differences as a personal loss.

She had left with her home heavy upon her back and bundled in her arms, buried in the ground where she settled. 

Her shell was too cracked to hold her again. 

~*~

[Coxcomb - Unfading Love]

Asriel wanted to shake them when they finally whispered their plan, soft-spoken words belying the little amount of choice Asriel actually had to agree. 

“I already started eating them,” they admitted, showing their hands with uncommon hesitancy. Their sensitive skin was already cracking with the poison. 

“Don’t,” they said shortly, curling their fingers away as he reached for them with shaking hands. “You don’t get to cry and take this away from me. You’re going to watch me die either way, so you might as well help.” 

Asriel’s heart grew hot and swelled painfully in his throat. 

He looked away.

~*~

[Cyclamen - Resignation and Goodbye]

What did it say that it was harder to leave the cold than to remain? 

Frisk didn’t want to leave the gentle comfort that this little town was able to provide, a snow globe perfectly preserved and gentle. Like it had been set on someone’s hard fireplace to look at on dark, hard days. 

They gently touched the Snowman piece in their pocket, patting it lightly, and nodded decidedly. 

The blinking and twinkling of the town’s lights blurred into distorted colors. They couldn’t bring themselves to look back as they walked back into the fog. 

They weren’t allowed to stay.

~*~

[Dracaena (Dragon's Blood) {Dragon Lily} - Inner Power]

For all the animated noise sounding behind them, Grillby’s was comforting with its dark wood and moderate lighting. They lightly swung their legs on their stool while they waited for their food, taking swift little looks at the skeleton sitting beside them.

Sans was as clever as Papyrus was energetic, and Frisk found comfort in the fact that Sans wouldn’t let them cause harm to anyone or anything that lay ahead. 

Sans lowered the empty bottle of Ketchup and winked.

what? got something on my face?

Frisk smiled and shook their head. 

He would kill them if he had to.

~*~

[Dead Leaves – Sadness]

His mother used to read him stories from the books that were tossed down below the mountain. 

They didn’t experience the world as it was actively was born, grew, faded, died, and was reborn anew to live it all through once more. He would look at the pictures of the trees as they changed, coming back to life stronger and brighter each new season.

When he felt Chara’s soul within his own for the first time, he knew what it meant to die and be reborn. 

As their body withered and fell to ruin, Asriel let them consume his warmth. 

~*~

[Dog Rose - Pleasure and Pain]

Occasionally it felt to Frisk that they were stepping with more than one body. They were heavy to pull along, sometimes, and they would often stumble and fall when their knees would buckle at the weight. 

They clutched at their phone as they sat and panted, wanting to call Papyrus to get his vibrant advice and wanting to wait until the loneliness was a bit too much to carry alone. 

They wanted to call Toriel even knowing that she wouldn’t pick up. 

Still, they called if only to listen to her voice telling them that she wasn’t there to answer.

~*~  
[Eglantine (Sweet-Briar) {Rosa Eglantaria} - Poetry, I Wound to Heal]

Chara didn’t understand why they cried so easily. 

At one time they found it sweet how his emotions were so powerful that they would pour out of him. But now Asriel’s tears were acid rain, and they would corrode him before their plan would ever work. 

“You can stop feeling guilty now.” 

Shining, wet eyes locked with theirs, brow furrowed with heavy pain. 

Chara painstakingly raised their fingers to stroke along Asriel’s muzzle, leaving faint red marks in his fur as they soothingly stroked through it. 

“It’s almost over. We’ll finally free everyone. ”

Asriel wasn’t very sure they could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Helleborus is commonly called the Christmas Rose based on a legend that it sprouted in the snow from the tears of a young girl who had no gift to give to newborn Jesus in Bethlehem.


End file.
